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We are lecturing on a cruise again!
At the beginning of the year, Gail pointed Russell to an agency website for cruise lecturers. He applied for more than 40 upcoming cruises, submitting more than 100 potential lecture topics. With our son Cameron’s help, Russell also put together a short audition video featuring highlights from our last cruise lectures.
Viking Cruises must have liked what they saw. In January, Viking offered us two back-to-back 14-day cruises in July and August. But after that initial contact, we didn’t receive any further offers. We figured Viking wants to see how we do before they consider us again.
We were wrong. At the end of February, Viking contacted Russell again. They had a last-minute lecturer need for a 14-day cruise in April-May. Unfortunately, Russell’s work schedule would not permit him to take this time off. He called Gail with the sad news.
Russell: “The only way I could do this cruise is if I quit my job.”
Gail: “Quit your job.”
Gail’s actual argument was that we have been working for years to get to the point where cruise ships contact us, instead of the other way around. If cruise lecturing is our future retirement plan, it would be foolhardy to turn down an opportunity like this. As a result, Russell “retired” in mid-March.
Our time between then and now has been hectic. Russell has been working 12-hour days to get four 45-minute lectures created and submitted. We went to our nephew’s wedding in Virginia on Apr 20. We saw our daughter’s family for Easter in Washington, DC on Apr 21. And Gail was in Ohio the week before for ancestry research.
As a result, we had two cross-country plane rides, followed by ONE DAY to pack, followed by a cross-ocean plane ride. Today, we are back at the airport on our way to Barcelona, Spain. We will have layovers in Seattle and Paris.
Here’s what our cruise itinerary looks like:
Somewhere during that time, Russell will deliver four lectures. We have no idea whether we are ready or not, but here we are. And we have no idea how busy we will be, but we will try to blog about our adventure along the way. Stay tuned!
